


Mary

by Sheepnamedpig



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Masquerade Ball, mid-case, not-so-secret identities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-23
Updated: 2012-07-23
Packaged: 2017-11-10 13:13:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/466690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheepnamedpig/pseuds/Sheepnamedpig
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John attends a ball and meets a woman who is much more than who she's pretending to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mary

**Author's Note:**

> Lol. I wrote this, sent it for beta, then literally forgot about it for something like a whole year. *mashes face on keyboard*
> 
> (Theoretically) Unbeta'd

John swirls his champagne flute, watching the finely dressed couples waltz around the expansive dance floor of the oversized ballroom. It would have been enchanting to watch the whirl and swish of black and colour if he hadn’t been standing there for an hour doing nothing  _but_ watching. He takes a sip of his half-finished champagne and grimaces. It’s gone warm and flat. He scratches at the itchy spots where his simple domino mask presses into the skin of his cheeks and wishes he’d never let Sherlock drag him into this whole masquerade mess.   
  
_“Watch for a woman in red,”_  Sherlock had said. John scoffs to himself. There are at least four women currently out on the dance floor wearing red, another six sitting at various tables around the room, and another dozen or so wearing shades paler or darker than the blindingly bright red of the Buckingham Palace guard uniforms. In fact, there’s one such woman in a dark red sitting at a table a few meters to John’s right.   
  
She’s something of an anomaly in this ballroom, from what John can tell. Her dress is obviously expensive, but rather than bold and flashy like the dresses of most of the other women, it is understated and simple almost to the point of being plain. Her mask is similarly unadorned, covering the top half of her face. Her hair tumbles in long, gently curled locks of luxurious mahogany, unembellished except for its natural shape and colour. She sits at an empty table, her skirts fanning gently out around her, and quietly watches the couples pass.   
  
John thinks she’s stunning and can’t figure out for the life of him why, for the whole time he’s been standing there, not a single man has asked her to dance.   
  
_Sherlock told me to watch for a woman in red, and I did,_  he thinks.  _There’s one right there, and I’m going to ask her to dance._  He sets his glass down on a table, tugs the hem and cuffs of his tuxedo jacket, straightens his bowtie, and strides over to stand next to her before his courage flees.   
  
She doesn’t look up at him until he has planted himself square in her line of sight, tilting her head up with an elegant, economical motion. She’s even more beautiful up close. Against the contrast of her gown, her pale skin seems to glow in the warm lighting of the room. Through the locks of her hair, he can make out a charming smattering of freckles dotting her shoulders. Looking at her now, he can see that her face is not traditionally beautiful—her lips are made to seem thicker through the careful application of lipstick, and her jaw does not curve as sweetly as another woman’s might—but her eyes make up the difference and then some. The liquid grey captivates him, and he wonders what it would be like to tumble into those pools and surround himself with the intelligence he sees shining out from them. She tilts her head to the side, a gentle movement that sends a curled lock of hair spilling over her shoulder to lie over her modest bust, John's eyes following its fall. She smiles, slow and amused, and John yanks his eyes back up to her face, pulling again on the hem of his jacket.   
  
He clears his throat and holds out his hand. The current song is winding down, the dancers slowing as the band plays its last variation. “Miss, might I trouble you for the next dance?”   
  
She looks at his hand, then up at him, and he wonders if her absence from the dance floor is by design rather than by exclusion. The question lingers between them for a long moment and John wavers inwardly, but he hides it with militaristic discipline behind a hopeful expression. She continues to stare silently up at him, and with every second that passes, John can feel his courage slipping away.   
  
His hand dips and he moves to pull it back, preparing an apology in his head, but her hand rises up to catch it by the fingers before it can fall back to his side.   
  
Her voice, when she answers, is a low contralto, made all the deeper for the way it seems to purr. The band is diving into the opening bars of a waltz, but her voice slides right under it and John fancies that he’s not hearing it through his ears so much as through the way it makes his bones vibrate in his body.   
  
“I would be honoured, sir.”   
  
She delicately places her hand in his. Her fingers are soft and warm in his palm and ungloved, unlike many of the other women in the room. John steps back and she unfolds herself from her chair in a single fluid movement, rising to her full height.   
  
Her full height of six-foot-three. John blinks in surprise and she smiles wryly down at him, a hint of challenge in those silver eyes. He smiles, lifts her hand, and leads her to the edge of the floor, where dancers are already passing in a spirited waltz.   
  
He gets them into position, lifting her hand in his and resting his other palm on her bare shoulder blade, the curled ends of her hair just brushing his thumb. An opening appears, but he lets it go.   
  
“My name is John,” he says.   
  
She smiles again, that slight, mysterious smile. “You may call me Mary.”   
  
_Mary._  John laughs in surprised delight. He doesn’t know what he’d been expecting. Something exotic maybe, or rare, but somehow it suits her. _Mary._   
  
“Are you ready, Mary?”   
  
“I am, John.”   
  
John looks up at this captivating woman and smiles broadly. She returns it, her eyes crinkling at the edges, and off they go, sliding seamlessly into the flow of the dance.   
  
She moves flawlessly with him, responding to his lead as though she knows what he intends to do before he does it. John’s no slouch when it comes to ballroom dance himself, so he steps it up, adding in more complicated patterns until they’re fairly flying across the floor, moving progressively through increasingly complex patterns as though they’d been dancing together for years rather than minutes. The song eventually ends, but through some unspoken agreement between them, they stay on the floor.   
  
They talk intermittently during the dances, their voices only just loud enough to be heard above the ambient noise of the ballroom. They’re gliding through a foxtrot when Mary asks him why he’d laughed when she told him her name.   
  
“Because it suits you,” he replies.   
  
She stiffens minutely. “Because I’m plain.”   
  
John lets his shock and disbelief show on his face. A surge of anger boils up from within him at the bastard who had caused such an obviously amazing woman to feel insecure. He pulls her tightly against him and chooses his words with care.   
  
“Because you are everything  _but_ plain. I’ve met my share of Marys before, but never one who was so worthy of the name. The moment I looked into your eyes I knew that you were extraordinary and unique, and that's coming from a man who's learned the hard way not to judge by appearances. You are captivating and charming and the only way you’ll get me to willingly leave your side is if you promise to wait just outside the men’s restroom while I use the facilities.”   
  
She blinks down at him, clearly surprised. She’s wearing makeup, but around the edges, John can clearly see a blush rising to her skin. She looks away to collect herself, and he enjoys the eyeful of elegant neck he gets until she looks back at him.   
  
“You certainly do have a way with words, John,” she teases. John can feel the vibrations of her purring contralto pass from her body to his where they’re pressed together from chest to hip.   
  
“Maybe you inspire it in me.”   
  
“I bet you say that to all the ladies.”   
  
“Not really, no,” he replies candidly. He feels another flare of irritation at whoever it was that made her think she was anything less than entrancing.   
  
Mary is quiet for a long minute after that. John meets her gaze evenly and his hands tighten where they hold her, a silent entreaty for her to accept his sincerity. He wishes he could see her face to make out the rest of her expression, but her grey eyes soften and a smile pulls at her lips and really, that’s all he needs. They ease into another topic of conversation, but John continues to hold her close to him as they dance.   
  
A full hour’s worth of dances seems to fly by. The conversation between them flows easily and they chat as though they’re old friends catching up rather than strangers that have just met. Eventually though, she begs off dancing, citing sore feet and the need to powder her nose. John leads her to the ladies’, her arm tucked in his, but she pauses outside the door.   
  
She looks shyly down at him, her hand gently grasping his forearm. “Will you wait for me here?”   
  
John huffs a laugh and smiles teasingly at her. “I’d been worried you were just pretending to like me and were going to try to give me the slip! Of course I’ll wait.”   
  
She hesitates, as though she wants to say something further, but instead pulls away from him and goes inside, leaving John to lean up against a nearby wall, watching the entrance out of the corner of his eye. She exits a few minutes later and as he escorts her to a table they’re accosted by Sherlock.   
  
“John, there you are. What did you find out about Cordelia Hutchinson?”   
  
John blinks. “Who?”   
  
“The woman in red, John! I told you to watch her movements. Where did she go?”   
  
“I don’t know! There were at least ten women wearing red and I couldn’t exactly keep track of all of them!”   
  
Sherlock throws his hands up in frustration. “Fine. It doesn’t matter anyway.” It’s then that he notices John’s companion, giving her a brief once-over and scoffing in disdainful amusement. He gestures casually at her. “Do you even know who—“   
  
“ _Sherlock_ ,” John hisses.   
  
“What now, John? You do realize that’s—“   
  
“Mary, yes. And I’ll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head around her.”   
  
Sherlock scoffs again. “ _Mary_ , of course. Well, I’ll just leave you and  _Mary_ to it then, shall I?”   
  
“I wish you would,” John mutters to Sherlock’s back as the other man strides away. He heaves a sigh and turns back to Mary, whose grey eyes track his flatmate as he disappears into the milling crowds.   
  
“Sorry about that,” he says, leading her to a table. “That’s my friend, Sherlock. He’s a right pain sometimes, especially around other people.”   
  
“No harm done, I daresay,” she replies, spreading her skirts as she sits, but her eyes are guarded. John sighs inwardly and quells the familiar urge to punch Sherlock in the face.   
  
He half expects Mary to inquire after his rather more fascinating flatmate, but aside from asking why it was so important that Ms. Hutchinson be observed, she seems largely disinterested in Sherlock, relaxing as she teases out John’s life story and opinions on everything from rainy days to wartime politics. He makes his own attempts to draw her out, but while she offers her opinions and thoughts freely, she skilfully deflects his questions about herself, so he allows her the privacy she seems to prefer and regales her with anecdotes from his med school days instead.   
  
They get up again for another few dances later in the evening, their wandering stream of conversation unbroken as they slowly circle the floor, heads bent together as they hold each other closer than is strictly necessary.   
  
John wants for the evening never to end. Mary is warm, soft, and beautiful in his arms, her droll wit a complement to his dry humour. She is elegant and feminine without being overly delicate or cloying. Like Sherlock, she is amazingly intelligent, but unlike Sherlock she keeps her intellect carefully leashed where his spills out like a geyser, so that John is amazed by her intelligence without being overwhelmed as he sometimes is by Sherlock’s.   
  
He wants to know everything about her: whether she prefers peaches and cream or strawberries and cream, if she whinges about her idiot co-workers or just quietly fumes, if she watches bad telly sometimes when nobody’s around to notice, what her hair looks like when she’s too lazy to comb it down, what colour her favourite underthings are, what her mouth tastes like on a Sunday morning.   
  
The ball is finally winding down and they retreat to a private corner for a few last moments of conversation. They’re interrupted, as usual, by Sherlock, who sends a text saying that, if John wants to waste time doing boring things, he might as well waste that time at home where he can at least be useful as Sherlock’s sounding board.   
  
John sighs at message and slides his phone back into his pocket. Mary tilts her head inquisitively.   
  
“Sherlock. I’m surprised he didn’t text earlier, but I suppose the case is going well enough to distract him.”   
  
“I hope he found what he was looking for while he was here,” she replies.   
  
“I’m sure he did. And he probably insulted the hosts and half the guests in the process.”   
  
Mary chuckles gently at that and John stares, locking into his memory the way her eyes squint and crinkle and the faint lines around her mouth crease. It makes John want to kiss her. He takes her right hand instead, holding it between his palms.   
  
There’s a faint tan line on the ring finger and he sweeps his thumb over it. There is no matching line on her left ring finger—he’d checked—and no date nor escort had materialised, so he figures his chances are good enough to gamble on.   
  
“I hope to see you again,” he says, “sometime soon.”   
  
She smiles a bit sadly and gestures at her mask with her free hand.   
  
“You won’t recognize me.”   
  
“Let me be the one to worry about that,” he says cheekily, and cupping her hand between his, he bows his head and presses a kiss to her knuckles.   
  
She laughs, that low, rolling laugh that John has dedicated his evening to drawing out of her as often as possible, and places her free hand on the back of his neck, drawing him to her.   
  
Her lips are soft against his and her fingers, trapped against John’s chest, curl into the fabric of his shirt. He releases her hand and wraps his arms around her waist, drawing her close, but the kiss stays chaste, just the press of his lips against hers. Eventually they part and John brings a hand up to touch the corner of her mouth where her lipstick has smudged.   
  
“You’ll  _definitely_ be seeing me again.”   
  
“I certainly hope so,” she responds, and John wants to taste her smile again, so he does.   
  
&&&   
  
The case gets solved with the usual Sherlockian dramatics, and barely two days pass until Lestrade calls them with yet another case which goes well at first, and then poorly when John gets kidnapped again, but the kidnappers are very stupid this time and don’t search him for a gun, so everything gets sorted in short order and another batch of criminals are sent away with Lestrade’s officers.   
  
And then three interminable weeks of boredom. John takes to doing extra hours at the clinic just to get away from Sherlock, who is more obnoxious than usual and always willing to take it out on John. Only thoughts of Mary keep John from murdering Sherlock, but as the days drag on, Sherlock’s life dangles ever more precariously over the cliff face of John’s temper.   
  
Mycroft apparently notices and takes pity on the two of them, or at least John hopes he does, because John gets back from doing the shopping just as Mycroft is taking his leave.   
  
“Hullo, Mycroft. Here with a case for Sherlock?”   
  
“Yes, in fact. I hope he hasn’t been too intolerable.”   
  
“Well, I haven’t murdered him quite yet, but it's a near thing.”   
  
Mycroft laughs and dons his coat.   
  
“Are you very busy today?” John asks.   
  
“Quite. Meetings all day, unfortunately.”   
  
John nods slowly.   
  
“That is a shame. You should come back for a proper visit when you have the time.”   
  
Mycroft gives him a sharp look. John can practically see the circuits firing behind those keen eyes. John sets his bags down and steps closer, catching Mycroft’s right hand in his and bringing it up to press a kiss to his knuckles.   
  
“After all, you did say you would come see me soon.”   
  
Mycroft’s eyes widen just a touch, but otherwise he gives no hint of surprise.   
  
“I suppose I did,” he says.   
  
“And I’ve been very patient,” John insists.   
  
“I suppose you have.”   
  
“So I think I deserve a reward.”   
  
“I suppose you do,” Mycroft says, smiling slowly. “Did you have anything particular in mind?”   
  
“Yes.”   
  
Mycroft steps closer, closing the gap between them.   
  
“Oh? Do tell.”   
  
John looks up at him, his solemn expression not quite reaching his eyes.   
  
“A kiss, please.”   
  
Mycroft taps his chin with a finger, pretending to consider the request.   
  
“I suppose I can oblige,” he answers, and bends down to press his lips to John’s upturned mouth.   
  
&&&   
  
Epilogue   
  
"What gave it away?"   
  
John tucks his face against the long column of Mycroft's throat and breathes in deeply.   
  
"Give me some credit," he teases. "You're the one who insists on sitting in my chair."


End file.
